1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a vehicle lateral control system and, more particularly, to a system and method for providing limited vehicle stability control when the primary lateral control sensing device fails.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
An emerging technology in the automotive industry is autonomous driving. Vehicles having autonomous capabilities are able to perform a variety of tasks without assistance from a driver. These tasks, which include the ability to control speed, steering and/or lane changing, are generally implemented by a vehicle lateral control system configured to receive sensing information from a primary sensing device such as a forward looking lane sensing camera. However, in these single sensor arrangements, the forward looking camera becomes a single-point-of-failure that renders the vehicle's lateral control system blind when the camera fails to function correctly.
In current systems, when the primary sensing device fails, the vehicle's lateral control system is disabled requiring the driver to take immediate action to control the vehicle's steering. However, studies relating semi-autonomous or autonomous driving reveal that there may be a delay for the driver to take over the vehicle steering control (e.g., 1-2 seconds or more). A delay in the driver's response time could be a concern if the driver is occupied with non-driving activities and does not immediately respond (e.g., collision with side traffic due to lane departure of the host vehicle). Thus, there is a need for a robust lateral control system that is able to alert the driver and maintain control of the vehicle for a reasonable period of time giving the driver an opportunity to regain control of the vehicle.